Another night with a great aurora over Östersund. I went down to Frösö harbor to capture some pictures. As I mentioned in my last blog post, this was also the last night with astronomical night, so it was a great finale of the winter season..

This Thursday, April 12, is the last night when we have so-called astronomical night here in Östersund. The astronomical night is defined by the Sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon. Most people look forward to the bright summer nights and the days getting longer, but for us astrophotographers and amateur astronomers, this is a time of double feelings. Nice with bright nights but also a great loss for our beautiful starry sky. Luckily, we can continue to enjoy the planets and the moon, and above all the sun that is now very active. It should be an exciting summer to follow the solar activity.

This Easter I was in the mountains in the northern parts of Jämtland. On the 8th of April ay I went up on one of the mountains nearby to capture the last images of the sky before it gets too bright. The photos were taken about 23:00, about 1 hour before the astronomical night occurred and you can still see the sunlight in the north, even though the Sun went down three hours earlier. I also got to see a small aurora, probably from a solar eruption that occurred on April 7, remains to be seen if that was the last aurora I'll see before the darkness returns this fall.

Once every eight years, Venus and Pleiades meet up. Last night Venus finally arrived at the Pleiades and they were at their closest. Here are a couple of photos showing this celestial meeting over Åre/Östersund airport.

In the first image, one can see five stars to the left of Venus, which forms the tip of a downward pointing arrow. These are part of the constellation Taurus. The brightest of these stars, Aldebaran (The upper left) is a red giant star that is about 30 times larger than our sun. It lies at a distance of 68 light years from us, in other words, just around the corner.

What's so interesting with the star is that in 1972, NASA sent a spacecraft called Pioneer 10 that is now on its way to that star. The spacecraft carries the famous Pioneer plaque showing the man's image and our place in the universe, as a kind of message in a bottle. The trip will take about 2 million years, remains to be seen whether there is any receiver at the address.